1. Hi, my name is Justin Sparks. 2. Im in the DFW area in Texas. I’d like to start a forestry mulching/ land clearing business to get away from my W-2 and provide a better life for my wife and 2 month old daughter. 3. I’m a USMC veteran, my skills are leadership, hardworking, and determination. 4. Currently I don’t have any revenue because I’ll be starting from zero. 5. What’s stopping me now is just knowledge. I don’t know the first thing to making an ad, quoting jobs, or anything to do with owning a business. With that being said, I’m here to learn and soak up as much as I can to get started. If there is anyone here with tips on the best VERY FIRST things that need to get done that would help a lot. Thank you to everyone here!

Just wanted to stop in with a quick update from this last rant... - As of 3/21, I am now a Licensed Class A CDL driver! - Have $28.6k worth of work quoted for month of April - Have deposits placed on $22k of the $28.6k - Submitted my two week notice at my W-2 job. - patiently awaiting the arrival of my HM-60DR Mulcher (CAT 275xe LM2 is ready at dealer) So hungry and ready to get my company off the ground and rolling. I appreciate everything this group has given me to get to this point. Wouldn't be here without all the words of wisdom from Austin and the group! POSTED 13 Days Ago: What they say is true, you can just do things. BUT! You can just do things a whole lot easier with the advice that Austin has given us. Let me explain with a quick timeline of events for myself and my company: January 2026: Signed with a recommended marketing company from a trusted family member. They built a nice website, Google Business Profile, as well as some other small things for SEO, nothing major. February 2026: Website launched, started some cold outreach to test the market. Started with some simple facebook business posts and $5-20 a day ads (I've never had social media so this was intimidating). Leads started to trickle in and started doing my first few site visits. Also ordered some nice shirts, hats, business cards and began getting the word out for my company. End of the month, I acquired a ram 4500, 25k gooseneck, and began CDL practice. March 2026: CDL training complete, 10 quotes out, 5 jobs with deposits placed, and more leads coming in. Finishing up CDL training in preparation for the arrival of my new CAT 275xe lm2 and Shearex mulcher head first week of April. April 2026 Plan: Execute jobs that are in the queue with 5 star service and start working for those 5 star reviews. Build momentum, and knock 2026 out of the park. Long story short, in just a few months, I got the LLC started, begun grinding for brand recognition in my area, found demand, started visiting and quoting jobs, and already have enough work booked to have a profitable launch, all before the machine has even arrived.

@Josh Reaper started running ads 5 Weeks ago He took fast action Got on camera (without making excuses) Wasn't afraid to ask for feedback Implemented the feedback Launched without overthinking Speed wins! From Josh's Scorecard: Crew day rate: $2,350 Total Ad spend: 525.17 Daily budget: was $50, now $33 Total Leads: 40 Cost per lead: 13.13 Jobs Quoted: 14 Job Sales closed: 6 Conversion rate: 43% Quotes sent: $53,561 Quotes converted to jobs: $19,300 and counting Check out Josh's full update post below for the full story https://www.skool.com/ownrops/my-1st-3-full-weeks-of-business-running-facebook-ads?p=18abb38a P.S. Don't forget to tune in to tmrw's Livestream at 7am MST / 8am CST / 9am EST Link: https://youtube.com/@theownerop see u tmrw morning!

NOTE: I just updated these numbers. I was looking at the past 30 days, these numbers are now for the life of the campaign, started 2/12 Ok! So things are going gangbusters and the season is off to a fabulous start here. I started running my new ad campaign mid-February while we still had a lot of snow on the ground. Things were a bit slow to start but as soon as the snow started melting I've been getting multiple leads a day. Here's some stats for the campaign so far: Daily ad budget: $50 Amount spent so far: $1995 Impressions: 125,858 Reach: 56,091 Cost per lead (CPR): $16.36 Leads generated: 122 Leads qualified for estimate appts: 75 (22 of these appts are upcoming) Estimates converted to jobs so far: 17 Gross revenue from booked jobs: $51,575 Estimates that seem likely to convert later in the year: 11 Estimate appointments that did not convert: 8 "No contact" Leads: 17 (leads that I could never get on the phone despite 10+ contact attempts) Over all rate of estimate appts converting to booked jobs: 68% (Last 2 years this was around 50%) Personal observations: - I called every lead 10 minutes that came in during business hours. Maaaybe 5% of these actually answered the phone call. I left a voicemail and followed up with a text message right away. - Average number of contact attempts (calls/voicemails/texts) per lead converted to job: 2.69 (range was 2-10)

Just wanted to share what following the process looks like! If people in here are on the fence about making this their full time job, I made the jump in early March to go full time into this. We had our first baby in October and my wife was very skeptical/nervous, dare I say excited, about the whole idea of me quitting. I have been bouncing between jobs about every 8-10 months, and this last job was 90k salary with killer benefits, but I was battling depression, low energy, and just wasn’t myself. I sat down with my wife, showed her my plan, and I went all in. In Austin’s starter scorecard I had a goal of my first 3 months going 10, 20, 30k in revenue. Currently, around 3 weeks into April I will hit 60k in revenue, which is 6 weeks ahead of my plan. Long story short, it works. I look in this group every day for motivation and I see some great people doing amazing things. Asking questions. Taking feedback. Moving forward. Generating results. @Austin Gray ’s community here is fantastic, and I can’t help but feel thankful and alive this Easter weekend! I feel that we are all hard nosed, hard working individuals, and I pray that we all find peace, success and something to pour our work ethic into! Big things coming in 2026 for this group!